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How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

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How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Swede » 01 08, 2019 •  [Post 1]

Before we can shoot an elk, we need to find one. They are not everywhere and sometimes they are gone for long periods. Even if we have hunted the same area for years, there was a time we started. What drew you to the place you hunt? Are you having good success in your hunt area?

I start with a screening process. Since I hunt Oregon, that first screen is pretty simple. Then I go to a slightly smaller screen. I start checking otc unit statistics. I am not necessarily going to the unit with the best stats, but one with poor or very poor stats will get passed over. Since I cannot hunt the whole unit, why get hung up on units stats? They are just a starting point. The average unit may have some good features I want to focus on, and have great possibilities. After the unit(s) are selected, I start looking at maps and Google Earth. At this point I am looking for small spots to go check out. I may leave home with up to 50 spots to look at, but I am only able to get to 30 on a week long trip. Those spots, and the areas in between will tell me if elk are in the area during hunting season. Somewhere along the line in this process I hope to find good tree stand locations. I have gone on a trip and found only mediocre spots. Sometimes I find a better spot when going to set up somewhere, and the new spot becomes my go-to place. That was the case in 2018. That is how I found the place where I got my elk. Soon after that I started finding more locations in that small area of about 5-10 square miles.
The spot and stalk hunter, still hunter or call hunter can do it the same way in essence. You will be focusing on many of the same things I look for, trails, wallows, and rubs.
Probably you do things a little different. What is your process?
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Indian Summer » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 2]

Generally speaking... word of mouth.... from guys I know. Once I’m into the area I may expand on it via horse or short drives to nearby areas. Never fails me.

I never begin on a computer.

Once in a blue moon I’ll look at stats and saw wow.... how can that be, my rate is triple that. So I don’t pay attention to it before looking at other places. I once hunted private land. I looked at the success rate and it was double that of my regular units. I thought this should be fun. It wasn’t. That rate was because people on ranches had easy hunting. My small property wasn’t so easy. I bet the public land success rate was really low there.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby saddlesore » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 3]

Mostly word of mouth and then go check it out pre season
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Swede » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 4]

So how are you guys getting "word of mouth" advise? Are you asking people or are they coming to you?
I have been invited to hunt some private places and been advised to hunt this or that area, but I am hunting a 1/4 acre or smaller spot. No one tells me here is the place to set a stand. It has been many years 1973 or 1974 since I went to a place where someone suggested elk would be. BTW: I got an elk there the first day.
Another thing I look at when assessing units in my rough screening process is percent of public land. It generally does me no good to plan a hunt on a 5% public land unit where I have no access.
The Cascade range in Oregon is another area where stats can be helpful to an outsider. The success rate is under 5%. It is mostly Forest Service land. The logging has been shut off for over 20 years and the logging areas have grown over. The browse in poor now. You may not know why the success rate is so poor, but that is not important. You might find some private pieces around the perimeter of the forest and hunt there, but that is limited.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby saddlesore » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 5]

Little different in CO, 50%+ of the state is public land. Plus generally we have a lot more elk. Stick a pin in any unit at 8500+ feet or so with good cover and we find elk. I help guys find a place to hunt, and quite few people have helped me in the past.
After 40+ year s hunting in Colorado though, I know most of the state
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Indian Summer » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 6]

Ditto where I hunt. Private land isn’t a part of the equation. I know lots of people who hunt and guide. You can’t be everywhere so we pass spots on to each other as we explore. I guess to sum it up in my opinion it’s not what you know but who you know when it comes to picking new spots. That what you know comes into play when you go there and figure it out and kill elk.

When you say you line up 50 spots and look at 30 in a weekend it makes a mountain hunter scratch his head. I’d be lucky to check out 2 a day and that’s from the same parking spot. 2 a weekend would be more realistic. I only check out 2 per year! But when I go there I have a lead on where to start and I’m armed with confidence knowing for sure that there will be elk. So I scout it thoroughly. I’m in no hurry to get out of there to scope out 20 other spots. I might check an area out for 3 days. If I’m really liking it I might spend a week and put together a really good game plan.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Swede » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 7]

A correction is in order here. I said I may check out 30 "spots" in a "week". I can hike to 5-6 spots in a normal day depending on how close they are to a road or each other. The spots are specific gps coordinates a spring, a game trail, a saddle or a bedding area. Often they are no larger than 1/4 acre. If it as a good spot I will likely name it and write down my observations and score it on a scale of 1-5. I do not write down any #1s as the get deleted. I am not much interested in a 2. A #3 is named and recorded incase I find nothing better. Rarely do I rate a place as a 5. A "5" is extremely rare and worth a lot. I am hunting #3 & #4s most of the time. They will get me elk, but no guarantee it will be over quickly.
Spots can get a different rating on different years. Where Stringunner hunts for instance is a case in point. Some years it stinks in there with elk. Some years it just stinks as a hunt location. It all depends on the cattle and the number of pilgrims that have been traipsing around the area.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Elkduds » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 8]

I have camped, hiked, hunted and fished throughout the CO mountains since the glaciers receded. I have an unlimited list of places I've been to or looked over @, wondering if they are as elky as they look. I'll never get to hunt or scout them all. I get into a couple each year. Of course, that limits the time available to return to spots from back in the day.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Indian Summer » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 9]

Elkduds I missed the glaciers by a decade or two but Lord knows I’ve covered a ton of ground along the Montana/Idaho border from Canada on south. Hundreds more miles along the Wyoming/Idaho border. I moved on from most of those places for no particular reason other than I love to roam new country. Over the years my style of hunting has changed too. But I could go back and do well in most of my old haunts. Some I have sold as hunt plans. Lately I’ve settled in to a particular area but I still poke around in about a 75 mile stretch of country for fun.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Elkduds » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 10]

Say there is a pendulum that swings from always hunting the same few spots every year since forever, @ the other extreme is one who will never go back to a previously-hunted spot, no matter how perfect it was. I'm 85% of the way toward somewhere different every year, maybe 2 brand new spots/year. Last fall I got a leftover tag in an unit I hunted about 1980. I scouted my old spot briefly, then selected from several other new-to-me spots.

Where are you on the spectrum?
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Indian Summer » 01 09, 2019 •  [Post 11]

I’m in a pretty regular pattern right now. My main area has me hooked. There are always elk. I have plans A, B, and C. Plan C requires a little more effort but the 6 point bulls are there for the taking with zero competition. Who can walk away from that. I’m about to minimize the time and effort to hunt it with a spike camp so I can maximize my time up there. That’ll also add the flare of being packed in away from the road never seeing or hearing a vehicle like the old days.

But the guy who originally pointed me to that spot says I don’t know what I’m missing by not hunting another area. Him telling me that definitely has my interest. Some day I may relocate. For half my hunt if I have lots of time. In the meantime I keep expanding my horizons in areas not far from home base. I’m always looking for places to offer my clients. Never too many hunt plans and you never know I may take a liking to a new area and pass my current one on to a client.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Scott69 » 01 21, 2019 •  [Post 12]

I look at harvest stats,public land percentage,and amount of tags given out.Ive never had anyone give me a spot to hunt elk.Ive only been on one elk trip that I never had a chance to fill my tag.That was a Montana hunt years ago and we were into multiple bulls each day but the storms never let up and swirling winds and bowhunting don't mix well
Once I pick a unit I'm obsessed with going on Google Earth.Without a doubt elknuts scouting DVD I bought almost 15 years ago was my best elk hunting investment.Maybe I'm just lucky, but I find elk right away from this scouting.I hunt early seasons almost exclusively so I'm looking for north slopes at high elevations (treeline),water source and food.But I think you can find a million of those type places in each unit.I won't hunt one or check it out unless I'm at least a mile off of a trail.I think 99% of the Backcountry bowhunters are afraid to get too far from a trail.They may walk in 3-5 miles but most will hunt right off that trail.Thats where Google Earth and good gps is key.Elk aren't going to sit right by that trail and be harassed everyday especially in states like Montana and Colorado with that amount of pressure.Their fear of getting lost helps my plan ALOT.I can almost guarantee a high percentage of successful guys know exactly what I'm talking about and do close to the same thing.Some places, I can jump off a trail within a mile of a road and bushwack off that and find plenty of elk and be all alone.Then look at my GPS and see I'm less then a mile from a road.Hunters are attracted to trails and parking areas.Im not one of them
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Lefty » 01 21, 2019 •  [Post 13]

I have moved into a number of states and have purchased a few nonresident hunting license over the years .

Most of my hunting location Were discovered because of proximity my scouting use to include sometimes driving through habitat I liked
When I was young the university in our town had a army Corp of engineer map center
I set up some trap lines by the amount of public land, road travel indexes , vegetation cover, waterway and road intersection, govemwnt animal indexies
One thing I discovered and started an article about trapping borders of states zones, refuges even ran the Canadian border. Anyway map work

The internet makes it easy
State fish and game isincredible
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Chuckler » 01 24, 2019 •  [Post 14]

For a general elk tag, I spend a good chunk of time on ONX. The spots I try and find have to be hard to reach on foot. I then look for food, water, and thick north slopes with benches in close proximity. I try and spend some quality time on foot in three or four new spots each summer prior to season. If I can find good rubs from the previous fall I put it down on the list. I try and go into the elk season with five or six spots that get me excited. Last year, my number four spot burned up in a wildfire. My number one spot dried up and did not have elk numbers like years past. You can't have too many spots!
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Indian Summer » 01 25, 2019 •  [Post 15]

Chuckler wrote:For a general elk tag, I spend a good chunk of time on ONX. The spots I try and find have to be hard to reach on foot. I then look for food, water, and thick north slopes with benches in close proximity. I try and spend some quality time on foot in three or four new spots each summer prior to season. If I can find good rubs from the previous fall I put it down on the list. I try and go into the elk season with five or six spots that get me excited. Last year, my number four spot burned up in a wildfire. My number one spot dried up and did not have elk numbers like years past. You can't have too many spots!


Where in Montana do you live? Everywhere I hunt in western Montana has food and water all over the place. It’s more about putting something between me and the road. Distance or elevation.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Chuckler » 01 25, 2019 •  [Post 16]

You are right Indian Summer, most of western Montana has plenty of food and water. But my main point was the food and water needs to be in close proximity to a thick and steep north slope that has benches mixed in and is hard to reach on foot with no road access. This kind of spot probably holds elk during the archery season in western Montana. It could be hard to reach on foot due to distance, terrain, and/or lack of trails. That is how I try and narrow down "elky" spots through map research before heading out on foot to confirm it. If I can find a semi recent burn close to hand that is a bonus.

There is no such thing as a secret spot anymore with tools like ONX available to everyone. If people know what to look for, every spot can be seen with a click of a mouse. Fortunately, there will always be spots that we have to work hard to get into by foot. The vast majority of hunters aren't willing to do that day in and day out. I don't hunt on horseback so I try to find spots horses can't get into.

I also try and make sure I am in unit at or above quota for current elk numbers.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby DWBMontana » 01 25, 2019 •  [Post 17]

I agree, ONXmaps and others like it have given everyone knowledge of areas most of us never knew existed 20 years ago, without visits to county court houses for Platt maps. Throw in social media, so many folks posting pics or video's of there hunts with local details. Competition is a great thing in the business world, not so sure it is in the hunting world though. Montana, like so many other western states, relies on dollars from NR hunters and to some extent fisherman to support Fish and Game agencies....but at what cost to our wildlife?
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby Indian Summer » 01 26, 2019 •  [Post 18]

DWBMontana wrote:I agree, ONXmaps and others like it have given everyone knowledge of areas most of us never knew existed 20 years ago, without visits to county court houses for Platt maps. Throw in social media, so many folks posting pics or video's of there hunts with local details. Competition is a great thing in the business world, not so sure it is in the hunting world though. Montana, like so many other western states, relies on dollars from NR hunters and to some extent fisherman to support Fish and Game agencies....but at what cost to our wildlife?



In states with the lowest population in the country where would game management and restoration projects be without non resident support? Local businesses too.
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Re: How Do You Pick A Hunting Area?

Postby DWBMontana » 01 26, 2019 •  [Post 19]

Come now, you state you lived in Montana for 12 years, you should know Montana's are a resilient lot.....who are very proud of out hunting backgrounds, with the highest rate of participation for hunting in the country, pretty sure we would survive, LOL. Imagine how much of the fwp budget could be saved without all the bureaucracy NR hunting creates. Yes, I know NR fee's support most of the Block Management program. But most of it is hammered by NR hunters, I have seen that first hand.
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